Prepackaged applications, or apps, reached a technological plateau during the past year, but with more exciting advancements expected in 2014, North American companies are once again deploying a wide array of mobile worker software. Frost & Sullivan’s latest research finds that overall, the largest proportion of decision makers (48 percent) report their companies already deploy one to 10 apps for employees on mobile devices.

Frost & Sullivan’s new analysis, the 2013 North American Mobile Enterprise Applications research, finds the app viewed as most necessary by businesses is wireless email, followed by mobile sales force autom

ation. The analysis measures the current use of and future decision-making behaviors toward mobile enterprise apps, specifically mobile asset tracking, mobile sales force automation, mobile workforce management, and wireless email solutions. The findings are based on a survey of 308 North American enterprise decision makers who were responsible for purchasing mobile software apps.

Among the deterrents to implementation, the most prominent reasons were concerns regarding the security of company and customer data as well as the potential high cost of implementation. Although pricing remains stable, with minor tweaks, app providers are showing a greater willingness to offer discounts for contractual commitments. In this scenario, service level agreements (SLAs) are receiving considerable attention.